Let’s go with odds and ends….

The odds encompass a wide range of silliness that accumulate, sometimes as really important issues such as, who is plugging the toilet in Sheboygan, Wisconsin?

Or why do photos of  members of the United States Congress with Louis Farrakan keep showing up even as the subjects deny having anything to do with this hater of jews and white people?  This list of friends all seem to come from the Democratic Party.  Really!  Why?

Or why was it fine for U-S president Obama to send congratulations to Vladimir Putin in 2012 after he was re-elected President of Russia but not OK for U-S president Donald Trump to do the same after Putin’s  re-election in 2018?  Do we suppose Putin’s victory in 2012 was a triumph without ballot box stuffing and the arrests of possible challenges?

Or why are all the lawyers on the Mueller Investigation team Democrats, half of whom sent money to the Clinton campaign.  You wonder if any sent money to The Donald.?

Or why can’t late night comedians find jokes that are actually funny?   Do Americans really believe that Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Myers are funny?  You want funny see the recent Facebook posting of George Carlin on the Jimmy Dean show.  I know that’s goes back years..but it’s been a long time since we’ve seen comedy that’s not laced with cruel political folderol.  How about Flip Wilson’s ugly baby story on the Carson show.  That was funny!

Or when will Canada’s Prime Minister grow-up?  Our dollar is in need of some serious policy upgrades.

Now there are some who will not think some of the Odds are odd which is odd but let me see if I can get an agreement on at least one oddity! Last week Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and filmmaker Michael Moore were involved in a televised town hall that focused on “inequality” in America.
They slammed wealthy Americans,  got the crowd worked up about the excesses of America’s 1% and generally moaned and groaned about the excesses of the rich.

Journalist Gary McIntyre decided to plumb the riches of the accusers, Sanders, Warren and Moore.  Sanders he noted likes to parade around Washington, D.C in a rumpled suit with unkempt hair, just like a no account off the street.  Sanders, according to McIntyre is doing swell–just bought a 600-thousand dollar house, earned $858, 000 in book royalties and with his Senate salary  pulled in more than a million in earnings in 2016.  Sanders says wealthy people are, “never satisfied, always wanting more.”  In 2016 Sanders was a one per center.  Does he wants more?

Senator Warren, according to CNN money is worth between $3.7 million and $10 million.

Has a Victorian home in Cambridge now assessed at $1.9 million and received an advance of $525,000 to write her book,  A fighting chance.  She claims to be fighting for  the middle and working class presumably with her one percent!.

Moore who has said the level of greed by the wealthy is “crazy” while working himself into a frenzy–denouncing business leaders living in “gated communities” and “castles with moats around them.”  His documentaries, “Bowling for Columbine” and “Fahrenheit 911.” helped him heap together a fortune of $50-million.  His 2013 divorce proceedings revealed the couple’s house was a 10-thousand-square-foot Michigan mansion.  Gated.

Don’t know about the moat but Madonna and Bruce Willis were living in the same neighborhood!  “Crazy.”

Now for the ends—there’s a serial toilet clogger on the loose in Sheboygan, Wisconsin!

Over the past year and a half this person, believed to be a male, has clogged the women’s toilet at the Deland Community Centre 26 times in 2016/17 and three times so far this year costing thousands of dollars for labour and repair.  Plus the inconvenience.

Sheboygan’s superintendant of parks and forestry says, “we can’t figure this one out.”

The culprit is  inserting  20 ounce soda bottles into the pipes of the women’s washroom.

(Thanks to Gary McIntyre for much of the information about the hypocrites Sanders, Warren and Moore)

Pollyanna Pedestrian Policy—-a killer

Toronto has a major problem!  Pedestrians are losing their lives in frightening numbers!

The carnage, 9 dead in the first two months of the year, has finally caught the Mayor’s attention who declared in his typical leading from behind political style, “we cannot have this carnage continue.”

OK Mayor John Tory how do you plan to deal with this, “crisis?”

His boldest suggestion to date was  to ask city staff to consider how they might speed up the city’s road safety plans…yea right—he’s asking a desk bound staff, that are slaves to  processes, and hog-tied by a goofy “pedestrians are royalty” advocacy group  to solve “a major crisis .”  Good luck.

I’ve got a suggestion for you John, do what nobody at Gravy Train Central has thought of doing, go stand on a city intersection, any city intersection and the light will come one in a nano second and you’ll see why pedestrians are being cut down on Toronto’s streets in record numbers.

Today I stood at the corner of Bay and Cumberland and in three minutes counted 13 pedestrian violations–jay walking, walking against the lights, ignoring that flashing hand–as a matter of fact that flashing hand is the most useless appendage in the ineffective plan to save the endangered pedestrians……………..save the electricity that makes it flash and turn them off, nobody is paying attention to the message they are trying to portray at a thousand intersections.  A half hour later I was at the intersection of Bay and Yorkville….for those not familiar with Toronto Yorkville Village is Tony to a T..smart people walk the streets of Yorkville….but what I saw was a display of just plain stupidity!

Numerous repeats of what I saw at Bay and Cumberland but the one violation I had trouble getting my head around was watching a Mom and a Dad with two kindergarten age children defy the gods and cross Bay against a RED light….

Their defiance and all the other violations can be traced to the advocacy group called Walk Toronto..this group came into the city’s consciousness a few years ago with a message, “Pedestrians are royalty!” Toronto must modify it’s vehicular-centric mindset and embrace a culture shift around safety!  Well what’s wrong with that?

Not a thing!  But from that debut to the “crisis” today in early 2018 Walk Toronto and its adherents, some of them in City Council have talked only about motorists—motorists must slow down, motorists must be alert to jaywalkers, motorists have to take into consideration the right of people to walk anywhere in safety regardless of their predilection to disregard basic rules and common sense!  In the hand-wringing statements tumbling out of City Hall I have yet to see the obvious —that pedestrians bear as much responsibility for their safety as motorists.  And I guarantee until pedestrians in the city of Toronto are put on notice, by the members of Council and the police the carnage will continue.  Walk Toronto’s blind advocacy for the rights of pedestrians while pummeling motorists is exactly why Mayor Tory has a carnage problem and it’s why the streets of Toronto will continue to experience excessive pedestrian fatalities.

Walking casually while crossing a street,  playing with your cellphone may not be illegal but it’s classic stupidity–incredibly,  Walk Toronto thinks that’s Ok!  Because Walk Toronto speaks only for those who walk blindly ignoring the rules that are designed to keep them safe!

So Mayor John until the obvious is addressed…your best bet is to affix every major intersection in the city with a big sign that says—-

“Cross at your own risk.”

And spend a few moments away from your plush office and take in an intersection or two!

It will help you will grasp the obvious!